The 40 Most Insane Easter Eggs Ever Found

Easter eggs: the ultimate symbol of man- and bunnykind's insatiable need to hide neat things in plain sight. For the last ... our entire existence, Cracked has cataloged the craziest Easter eggs ever hidden in film, television, ancient art, religion, and even the very websites you use every day. Think of this as our obsessive love letter to the obsessed maniacs responsible for all of this ...

#40. The Great Old Churches Are Full of Porn

Much of the art made during the Italian Renaissance was specifically commissioned by the Catholic Church to adorn the walls of Catholic cathedrals for the everlasting edification of Catholic God lovers. And up until the mid-1500s, the Catholic Church was pretty cool with artists getting a free hand on their walls.

Sometimes "free hand" meant tastefully rendered imaginings of the heroes of the Bible. And sometimes "free hand" meant literally having a free hand to masturbate with after viewing said pictures.

At least until the Counter-Reformation, when the church put the kibosh on the flagrant display of holy genitalia and hired a loincloth painter to cover the most offending penis action, such as the scene above, from Michelangelo's "Last Judgment." Prior to the cover-up, Mr. Red Robe back there was full-on naked and looking down at the badonkadonk of St. Lady Gun, who was also naked. And considering her bent-over posture, it totally looked like he was getting some from the backside.

But the Catholic Church wasn't the only game in town, and plenty of other Renaissance artists used their prodigious talents to prove it. Once these guys were out in the secular world, things started getting explicit. Such as:

You'd think that was piss until you noticed that curators catalog it under "Ejaculating." If you are one of those people who never really appreciated old-timey artwork before now, we beg you: Look at the expression on that horse's face. Who among us hasn't worn that very expression, in that very situation?

Call of Duty: Black Ops is a heartfelt and touching look at the physical and psychological cost soldiers pay to defend their country told while you mow down seven or eight thousand foreigners across several decades. But the plot has a clever, Shyamalan-esque twist at the end.

You play a gruff badass called Alex Mason, who early on gets captured and imprisoned in a Russian gulag alongside a man called Viktor Reznov, but (SPOILER!) it turns out Reznov is only a figment of Mason's imagination. The real guy died years earlier. See, you thought you were just shooting a bunch of dudes in the head, but it was your mind that just got blown (sorry).

The Foreshadowing:

Sure, astute players might have noticed that, aside from Mason, not one single person in the entire game talks to Reznov. Mason and Reznov are accompanied by several other soldiers, but none of them so much as even look at Reznov, let alone question why a freaking Russian is hanging around guys tasked with exterminating as many of his countrymen as possible, one shotgun shell at a time.

ActivisionThey could've at least asked him where he got that sweet-ass jacket.

But then there are the little touches. For instance, not only do they not talk to him, but on several occasions while you and Reznov are talking, the other soldiers will stare at you like you've lost you fucking mind (which you totally have). They'll interrupt the "conversation" with noises like "Huh?" "Hmm ..." and the incredibly succinct "What the fuck's wrong with you?" This is exactly how most of us would react if we witnessed one of our comrades talking to his imaginary friend during a goddamn shootout.

But the game also drops its own hints in a manner entirely appropriate for a game set in the espionage-filled Cold War era: by using code. At the beginning of each level, a small briefing appears on screen, revealing your location, your mission, the date, and a few items your wife wants you to pick up at the market on your way home.

Activision"And don't forget ears. That necklace is almost finished."

Now, see that circled word next to "Designate"? That word changes every level. If you take the first letter of each designation ("X" in this case) and arrange them in the order they appear in throughout the game, you get XREZNOVXXISDEDX: "Reznov is dead." Or "gzreznovgkzgkzisdedix" if you're an asshole who takes everything literally.

#38. Black Swan -- The Club Scene Tells You the Whole Movie

Fox Searchlight Pictures

In the 2010 ballet thriller Black Swan, Natalie Portman is Nina, a dancer who can't stand the pressure of playing the main role in Swan Lake and goes a little funny in the head. Before her breakdown, she has some fun times with fellow dancer Lily (Mila Kunis) when the two go to a rave party together and later have sex. We'll save you a trip to YouTube and show you the part of the previous sentence you immediately felt like looking up (the rave party, of course):

Did you get all that? OK, because that one-minute scene just told you the entire movie. The shots are too fast to see, but if you keep your finger firmly pressed on your pause button (or watch this handy frame-by-frame version), you can see weird stuff like Nina being stalked by the characters of the ballet, including the one she plays:

Or Nina dancing with the theater director, who isn't actually in the club at all. Adding to the confusion, he later morphs into Rothbart, Swan Lake's feathery villain. This represents his negative influence on Nina.

Fox Searchlight PicturesAnd also the fact that he sometimes dresses up like Cher.

Then Nina suddenly appears dancing as the Black Swan, which she doesn't do until the end of the film. We also see another scene from the end of the film -- the closing of the Swan Lake performance (although in a slightly more drug-induced version).

Fox Searchlight PicturesUm, spoilers?

Then come some what-the-fuck disembodied eyes and faces from people in another dimension:

Fox Searchlight PicturesIt's not a ballet movie until you've got some abject horror in there.

And then suddenly everyone in the room is Nina, and we get the wallpaper from Nina's bedroom, which tells you where we're all headed next. She's basically surrounded by different versions of herself from other points in the movie.

Fox Searchlight PicturesYou also see Doc Brown running around in the back.

What does it all mean? Well, it's pretty much walking you through all of the twists that are coming later in the film. All of the plot and imagery squeezed into a single minute, and all the things Nina does here (getting intimate with people who aren't there, seeing her face on everyone, hallucinating the characters as real people) will happen again as the movie continues. In other words, the movie is telling us that Nina doesn't go off the rails because of the pressure of getting the part -- she was pretty much loony from the beginning.

Community's Accidental Sexy Easter Egg

#37. Creepy Hidden Messages in Your Web Browser

Mozilla

There's a creepy hidden message in the Web browser you're using right now. Assuming it's Mozilla Firefox. If it isn't, then kindly open Firefox and read that sentence again. We'll wait.

Every Mozilla browser includes a special "about" feature that allows you to configure certain sections just by typing "about:whatever" into the address bar. For example, if you type "about:about," you'll see a list of all the menus they offer. Some of the menus are actually cute Easter eggs, like "about:robots," which takes you to a page referencing things like Blade Runner, Futurama, and the eventual annihilation of all mankind.

MozillaSee? It's cute, and not at all sinister foreshadowing.

However, if you type "about:mozilla," perhaps looking to learn a bit more about the browser, you'll come across a red screen with ominous Bible-like text written on it:

Mozilla

What the complete hell? What you've just read is an excerpt from the Book of Mozilla, an ongoing text of apocalyptic literature secretly inserted by Mozilla into each of its Web browsers dating back to when the company worked on AOL's Netscape in 1995. So if you typed "about:mozilla" 17 years ago, you'd see this:

Mozilla

And in 1998, when the next version came out, it looked like this:

Mozilla

When Mozilla launched its own browser, Firefox, they kept including the secret messages to maintain the tradition, and possibly preserve their pact with Lucifer. Here's the passage from 2003:

Mozilla

Apparently, each verse is a metaphor for one of the updates Mozilla has released. Hidden developer commentary in the code of the 1998 page confirms that the beast "Mammon" is actually Mozilla's main competitor, Microsoft Internet Explorer. The first verse we showed you says that Mammon has become "naught but a follower," a reference to the fact that the latest editions of Internet Explorer straight up ripped off several features from Mozilla. Among them was the "about:mozilla" page -- if you type that in some versions of Explorer, it takes you to a blank blue screen.